Walpole killer’s conviction upheld

Friday

Jul 31, 2009 at 12:01 AMJul 31, 2009 at 10:13 PM

The state’s highest court has upheld the conviction of a Norwood pizza delivery man who murdered a 75-year-old Walpole woman while she was taking a mid-morning walk through Bird Park in Walpole in 1998.

Staff Reports

The state’s highest court has upheld the conviction of a Norwood pizza delivery man who murdered a 75-year-old Walpole woman while she was taking a mid-morning walk in 1998.

“The jury’s guilty verdict against Martin Guy stands, and the (Supreme Judicial Court) has also rejected his bid for a new trial,” Norfolk County District Attorney William Keating said. “I am pleased for the family of Irene Kennedy that this chapter is settled in the best possible way.”

Guy, 47, was sentenced to life in prison in September 2006 after a Norfolk County jury convicted him of first-degree murder. In 1998, he stabbed Kennedy 32 times and strangled her after she briefly separated from her husband while they were walking through Bird Park in Walpole.

Shortly after Kennedy’s death, Edmund Burke of Walpole was arrested and spent 41 days in jail before DNA evidence showed he was not the killer. The charge against Burke was dropped, and a federal jury awarded him $400,000 for wrongful arrest.

“Another man was sitting in jail awaiting trial for this murder on the day I assumed office,” Keating said. “It was more than four years after I ordered the charges against an innocent man dropped, within days of taking office, before the CODIS DNA database linked the evidence in this murder to Martin Guy.”

Guy’s DNA was entered into the database after he was convicted of stabbing his neighbor, Christopher Payne, to death in in September 1999.

Keating praised the court’s ruling which was issued Friday as thoughtful and joined the court in praising the work of Assistant District Attorney Robert Nelson, Keating’s head of homicide prosecution.

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